


Becoming a Team

by dettiot



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 09:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6112690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dettiot/pseuds/dettiot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver gives Felicity space, while trying to find a way to bridge the gap between them.  (Post 4x15)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming a Team

**Author's Note:**

> Because I have all the Oliver Queen feelings.

 

Oliver tried.  He really did.  

After Felicity left, he tried to stay in the loft.  The first night, he didn’t go near their bed, sure, but . . . he tried to get comfortable on the couch, to get some sleep.  But he spent the whole night staring at the ceiling fifteen feet above him, watching the lights of Star City paint patterns up there.

The next night was worse, because he buried his face in Felicity’s pillow, which still bore traces of her shampoo and perfume and  _ her _ , and had nothing but nightmares.  Mocking voices, sounding like Helena and Laurel and Samantha, saying that with all his sins and flaws, how could he think that any woman would be happy with him?  And worst of all, Felicity standing there, listening to those voices too, and never saying anything.  

The next two nights, he came back to the loft late, after evenings spent being the Green Arrow and then working out as hard as he could.  He had hoped that pushing his body to exhaustion would let his brain shut down.  But it didn’t work.  He still couldn’t sleep in the home he had shared with Felicity.  

When he had designed the new location for the team, he had put in a full bathroom and a small alcove with a set of bunk beds.  He never thought he would use those facilities, though.  He thought it would be handy for the times they had to shelter people, or for recuperating team members, or for anyone who simply needed a place to rest.  

Oliver had never thought any of those things would apply to him.  He thought he would always want to go home, because Felicity would be there.  

Everyone knew he was sleeping in the lair.  He could see Digg and Laurel exchange looks when they saw him with freshly-showered hair or when he brought a bag full of clean clothes.  He noticed how Thea eyed the beds, and that the next night, an extra pillow and blanket appeared on the bunk he had been using.  

Felicity knew, too.  But whatever she thought or felt about his new sleeping arrangements, she kept hidden behind a neutral facial expression and blank eyes.  

Because she was still there.  Still Overwatch, still the voice in his ear when they went on patrol.  With Damian Darhk behind bars--something that felt weirdly anticlimactic and made all his instincts twitch--Star City was closer to its old self.  Random crime in all the typical spots, a few petty thugs attempting to consolidate power: all stopped by the Green Arrow and Speedy and Black Canary and Spartan.  And Overwatch, too.  Because without Felicity, nothing worked.  

If Felicity hadn’t given up on the mission to save Star City when he had seemingly died, or throughout all their problems last year, he had known she wouldn’t leave now, either.  And he was right.  She didn’t.  She was still there.  Still a member of the team.  

The people he had surrounded himself, the team that had formed around him, were the best people Oliver knew.  They showed that in the aftermath of Felicity walking away from him.  Because they treated Oliver and Felicity the same as always.  As part of the team.  Thea and Felicity still had their soft conversations by Felicity’s computers.  Laurel was still ready to spar with him before each patrol in order to loosen up their muscles.  And Diggle . . . he seemed to be walking a tightrope between Oliver and Felicity, showing the same compassion and truth he seemed to possess in abundance.  

It was better than he could have hoped.  More than he deserved.  He hadn’t expected this kind of support.  He had thought that after a few days, Laurel would pull him aside and tear him a new one--for Samantha and for Felicity.  Pointing out how he was making the same mistakes with Felicity that he had made with Laurel and hadn’t he learned anything by now?  Thea understanding why he had kept William a secret from Felicity had surprised him, and he kept waiting for her to reverse her stance and tell him that he had screwed up.  And even though Digg said he had understood Oliver’s choice, Oliver also knew that his best friend thought Felicity was the best thing that had ever happened to him.  It was only a matter of time before Digg would want to have one of those talks with him.

But as one week passed, and then two, none of that happened.  The strange new status quo felt ever-so-slightly less strange.  Less new.  More . . . normal.  

That was when Oliver got mad.

XXX

It was time, John Diggle realized.  Thank God.

The last two and a half weeks had been rough.  Not like last year, at least, when Oliver’s head was so far up his ass he couldn’t see straight and Felicity had been living in two separate worlds between the Foundry and Palmer Tech.  John didn’t want that to happen again, so he had taken Thea and Laurel aside to form a pact, the three of them.  To support both Oliver and Felicity right now.  To try and act as normal as possible during working hours, to not make it look like anyone was taking sides.  

For the most part, it had worked.  Sure, Thea still had times when the friendship she had been forming with Felicity wasn’t so warm.  And Laurel certainly had mixed emotions about both Oliver and Felicity right now.  But because they were good people, they understood what John had said, listened to his stories about last year, and they made it work.  

Which meant that Oliver didn’t go off the rails.  Felicity didn’t pull away.  At least, not entirely.  Oliver was sleeping in the Lair, but he was spending time with Thea and had even brought in a homemade dinner for the team three nights ago.  Felicity seemed to be working extra hours at Palmer Tech, but she still came for her weekly dinner with the Diggles and had even had coffee with Thea last week.

Of course, they were both damn fools, entirely too stubborn for their own good and crap at communicating.  Oliver’s issues were too vast to even think about.  While Felicity might have hidden hers a lot better, she had plenty, too.  There were nights when John went home to Lyla and gave thanks for the hard-won trust they had built between them.  How they had taken their second chance and built a strong, sturdy marriage.  It was the bedrock of his life now.  And he wanted that for his friends. 

But Oliver and Felicity were going to have to work even harder than he and Lyla had if they wanted that.

Hearing the way Oliver’s fists pounded on the training dummy, John knew that the idiot hadn’t even bothered to wrap his hands.  Which meant it was time for the talk that John knew Oliver had been waiting for.  

Talking to Oliver when he was grieving what had happened, what he had lost--that wouldn’t be effective.  No, Oliver needed some time to get past the grief.  An angry Oliver wasn’t necessarily much better, but John thought he could get through to him.  Maybe knock some sense into him.

John moved two of the chairs from the conference table over towards the workout area.  He took a seat, resting his folded hands in his lap and waiting for Oliver to ease up.  From the way Oliver’s blows got a little faster, John knew that Oliver knew that he was there.  But he didn’t say anything, just waiting him out.  

Which, thankfully, took only another minute.  Then Oliver turned to face him.  “I have to say, I thought we’d be having this talk a lot sooner,” his brother-in-arms said, one corner of his mouth turning up.  

“Yeah, well, I’ve got to keep you guessing.  Don’t want to be too predictable.  What was it you used to say?  Vary your speed of attack?” John said, smiling back at Oliver.  

He let out a small huff and flexed his hands, wincing a little, then walked over to the chair.  The way he lowered himself slowly told Digg that Oliver was back to the hard workouts he had done when this had all started.  When it had just been Oliver and John in that dingy basement under Verdant.  But with an extra three and a half years of wear on his body, Oliver looked like he wasn’t bouncing back from the hard ones so fast anymore.  

“I fucked up and I don’t know how to fix it, John.”  

There was a bleakness in Oliver’s voice that John had never heard before.  But also, an anger and frustration that was new.  

“Really?” John asked, keeping his voice free of judgement.  “You have no idea what to do?”  

Oliver sighed.  “Okay, so I have ideas for how to fix it, but . . . but I can’t fix this on my own.  I have to work with Felicity, and--and I don’t know if she--”  His voice stuttered, and then he took a deep breath.  “I don’t know if she’s ready to talk.  She’s giving me nothing to go on, and I don’t want to try until I know she’s ready.”  

“It’s a risk you’re going to have to take,” John replied, leaning forward a little in his chair.  “I know that Felicity hasn’t been giving you much insight into how she’s feeling, but at some point, you two are going to have to figure out where you stand.”

“I just . . .” Oliver said, standing up and starting to pace, the frustration rolling off him in waves.  John let him, just watching him move around.  Finally, Oliver shook his head.  “I just want her to talk to her.  Even if she was yelling at me.  Anything but this silence.  Anything but her stepping back to get space, to get air.”  

Oliver looked at him.  “I get why she does it.  When she’s stressed, she snaps at people, says things she doesn’t really mean.  So she goes away until she can calm down.  But while she’s calming down . . . she’s deciding what she wants.  What she’s going to do.  She told me we needed to communicate more, but she walked out and now all we talk about is patrol.  She won’t talk to me.  So how do I get through to her?”  

Without any strength behind it, Oliver threw a punch at the dummy.  It still rocked back on its base, the creaking loud in the empty lair.  

Because John didn’t know what to say.  Because he felt for Oliver.  Couldn’t imagine having been put in the position he had been in, couldn’t imagine making the choice to send his child away for his own protection.  When John imagined doing that to Sara, it was like his heart stopped beating.  

He couldn’t imagine doing it.  But if, in a world where that kind of choice had to be made, he also couldn’t imagine not talking to Lyla about it first.

But Oliver . . . he would do anything and everything to spare people pain.  Including shouldering the burden himself, being the one to make the tough decisions.  It was what made him the man that John wanted to follow.  But not when Oliver made decisions for John.  And it sure as hell  wouldn’t make Oliver the easiest life partner to have.  

“All I can say, Oliver, is that you’ve given her space.  It’s time you--”

“I didn’t give her space, John,” Oliver snapped, turning on him.  “She took it.  She walked out.  It’s not on me to make the first move.”  

“Man, what kind of thinking is that?” John asked, shaking his head.  “The kind that leads to you two letting this become a wall between you.  Give her something.  A sign that you want to discuss this problem like two adults--two adults that love each other.”  

The anger drained out of Oliver as quickly as it had appeared.  “Do you think she still loves me?”  

It was almost too tempting, the desire to tee up on the easy pitch that Oliver had just tossed over the plate.  John wanted hit it out of the park, to tell him exactly how much Felicity still loved him.  Because no woman tried to act that unaffected when she wasn’t in love.  She was fighting with everything she had to appear composed and unruffled, which was weird enough when it came to Felicity.  But the fact that she was acting that way towards Oliver was even weirder, because Felicity’s face had always been an open book when it came to him.  

So yeah, John thought Felicity still loved Oliver.  Still wanted to marry him and share a life together.  But that wasn’t going to happen until the two of them were able to meet in the middle, instead of standing on either side of the gulf between them.  

“I think you’d find out if you talked to her, Oliver,” John said. 

Standing up, he picked up his jacket.  “Lyla’s away on ARGUS business tonight.  You want to come over?”  

Oliver shook his head.  “Thea made me promise to spend the night at her place.  I’m going to make her dinner.”  

John nodded, feeling somewhat relieved that Oliver wasn’t going to be alone.  As he slid on his jacket, he took in the lines of Oliver’s shoulders, the way his forehead was wrinkled.  

“You remember last year?  When you were busy pretending to be the right hand man for Ra’s?”  

Blinking, Oliver looked at John.  “Um . . . yeah.  Yeah, I remember.”  

He hadn’t really thought this through, so John paused, taking a breath as the memories came back.  “What you did to Lyla, to Sara . . . I knew you were regretful.  That you wished you didn’t have to do that.  But I could tell--you didn’t get why I was so mad.  You didn’t understand that feeling a father has, even though you care so much about Thea, about Felicity.”  

Other than stiffening slightly, Oliver stayed silent as John spoke.  

“I got it, man,” John said, taking a step towards Oliver.  “You weren’t a father.  But now . . . you are.  You know that feeling.  How there is nothing you wouldn’t do to protect that child.  Because it’s a piece of you.  A piece you wanna keep safe, always, no matter what.”  

“John, I--”  

Lifting a hand, John gave Oliver a small smile.  “It’s okay.  I know you’re sorry.  I know you wouldn’t do anything like that again.  I’m just saying--you know how I feel now, and I understand what you did.  I think the mistake you made was making decisions without talking to Felicity first.  The thing with keeping William a secret, well--you were put between a rock and a hard place.  But sending him away without talking to Felicity first?”  

“I know,” Oliver said, his voice thick.  Whether it was from clenching his jaw or trying to hold back tears, John wasn’t sure--and he wasn’t going to mention it.

John nodded.  “When you love someone, you want to help them.  Even if it hurts you.  By shutting Felicity out of those hard decisions . . .”  

“I know,” he repeated, his shoulders slumping.  “I just . . . I’m trying to find another way of being.”  

“Tell Felicity that,” John said.  “Ask for her help.  You’ll slip up and make mistakes, but you’ve got to keep trying.  And if Felicity is willing to accept that, you two can fix this.  Be a team again.”  

For the first time in days, there was a spark of hope in Oliver’s eyes.  “A team.”  

He didn’t know why those particular words seemed to have resonated, but John wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.  “Exactly.  Now, go take a shower and then ask your sister for advice in getting a woman to forgive you.  You don’t know how lucky you are, having a sister.  Andy was never any help with that.”

Oliver let out a small chuckle.  “I don’t know if Thea’s ready to help me.  I think she wants to yell at me.”  

“Give her the puppy dog look you normally give Felicity, and she’ll ease up on you,” John advised, clapping Oliver on the shoulder and then heading for the elevator.  

Hearing Oliver actually laugh was the best thing John had heard for weeks.

XXX

Over the last three and a half years, Thea had gone through many different identities.  Spoiled little rich girl.  Wounded soul.  Vengeful daughter.  Child.  Woman.  Speedy.

But the one that she could never give up was Ollie’s sister.  

Even when he had lied to her, even when he had made decisions for her when he shouldn’t have, even when he had sacrificed himself for her . . . Thea could never stop being his sister.  

Which made this whole situation with Felicity so hard.  Because Thea had been slowly starting to try on a new identity.  The little sister that Felicity had never had.  Becoming someone to talk to about nail polish and hairstyles.  Sometime to go out for coffee with.  Someone to talk to about plans and dreams and the future.

It was funny.  Felicity was such a big part of Ollie's life, yet Thea had barely known her.  Not until after Nanda Parbat, when Felicity was suffering like Thea over the loss of Oliver.

And ever since then, as Thea got to know the woman her brother loved, she couldn't believe Ollie had been so lucky.  He had always been such a bad boyfriend, but he was different with Felicity.  Not making the mistakes she saw him make in the past, both before and after the island.  And Felicity made him better.  Happy, in a way Thea never thought she'd see.

So yeah, this sucked.  And while she understood why Ollie had lied to Felicity, it didn't change the fact that this was something he did.  He made decisions for other people when he shouldn't.  As good as his intentions were, as much as it was done out of love, even if it was a combination of genetics and habits he had formed over the last eight years, habits that he was having trouble breaking . . . it was wrong.

He had done it to her and he had done it to John, and neither of them had let Ollie get away with it.  Neither of them were willing to accept that kind of treatment.  Of course Felicity wouldn't, either.

But it had been nearly three weeks now, and it was time for Ollie and Felicity to actually do something, instead of hiding behind the Green Arrow and Overwatch.  Thea had agreed with John that the team couldn't look like they were taking sides, and Thea had done her best.  But she was tired of waiting, because she wanted her brother back--the Ollie who had been around the last five months, the one who smiled and was happy.  And she wanted her sister back, too.

When someone knocked on her door, Thea braced herself for a hard conversation.  So it was a pretty big relief when she opened the door and saw an Ollie who looked . . . thoughtful.  Not closed off and miserable or angry and frustrated.

“Hey, Speedy,” he said softly, stepping forward and wrapping an arm around her as he kissed the top of her head.

No matter how old she was, she kinda loved it when he did that.  Because it was just so  _ Ollie _ .

“You ever worry that someone's going to put together the pieces and figure out you’re the Green Arrow, thanks to that nickname?” Thea teased him.

Ollie gave her that slightly-annoyed, slightly-amused look he always gave her when she brought up her nickname and secret identity.  “‘Nice to see you, too, Ollie.  I ordered your favorite pizza and wings, too’ was what I was hoping to hear.”

“How do you keep those abs when you eat like a frat boy?” Thea complained, locking the door behind him.  “Guys get all the breaks.”

“I don't eat like that ever,” Ollie protested.  “And I figured you would have no food in the house, so I brought food.”  He held up a plastic bag and then walked into the kitchen.

“If you thought cooking dinner would keep me from yelling at you . . .” Thea warned him, resting her forearms on the counter as she watched him unpack the bag.

Ollie snorted.  “I knew it wouldn't.  It might buy me some time, though.  Besides, John beat you to the ‘talk sense into Oliver’ conversation.”

“Damn it, if he wasn't like our Yoda, I'd be really pissed off,” Thea said, only half-joking.   _ She _ had wanted to be the one to talk sense into Ollie!

“There's another way you can help,” Oliver said, pulling a bottle of sparkling cider out of the bag.  “But open that first.”

She bet he would prefer wine, or something even harder.  But whenever Ollie came over here and cooked, he never had alcohol, for Laurel’s sake.

Opening the bottle and pouring the cider into two glasses gave her a minute to watch Ollie.  To see how his mind was definitely working over something.  Ollie was a lot of things, but a thinker wasn’t one of them.  Not that she thought he was concerned with anything else now, but clearly he was thinking about Felicity.  Only she would make him deliberate so hard.

“Okay,” she said, setting the glass on the counter in front of him.  “What did you need my help with?”  

He glanced at her and smiled a little.  “I need your help figuring out how to make the first move with Felicity.”  

Thea’s eyebrows knitted together.  “Didn’t you kinda already do that?  Felicity told me about it--you asked her out to dinner and was all shy and bashful.”  

“I was,” he acknowledged, ducking his head a little.  “But, what I meant was . . . I don’t know how she feels about me right now, and I want to take the first step to talking with her.  But--I don’t really know what to do.  It’s not like I’m apologizing.  If I was, I’d get flowers and candy and a bottle of Lafitte-Rothschild.”  

“Isn’t that wine like three grand a bottle?” Thea asked, wondering where Felicity had developed the taste for such an expensive vintage.  Then she shook her head.  “Never mind.  What do you mean, you’re not apologizing?”  

Ollie frowned.  “I mean, I am--”

“Do you still think you did nothing wrong in all this, Ollie?” Thea snapped, pinning her brother with her glare.  “Because I had just decided I wasn’t gonna yell at you, but--”

“No, no, I’m apologizing,” Ollie interrupted, holding his hands up.  “I just mean . . . I don’t want to apologize like I did before, I mean.  I just . . . I want her to talk to me.  I want us to fix this.  Because I don’t want to go on like we are.  Only working together, but not like how we’ve ever worked together before.  And . . . and I don’t want to go through the rest of my life without having done everything I could to fix this.”  

“Okay . . .” Thea said, feeling confused.  

Swallowing, Ollie ran his hands over his face and clasped them on the back of his neck for a moment.  “I think Felicity knew I was keeping something from her.  From pretty much the time I made the decision to go along with Samantha and keep William from everyone else.  And Felicity gave me an opening to tell her about it.  She said, ‘We’re a team, and I want to be a good teammate to you, but that only happens if you talk to me.’.”  

Thea winced involuntarily.  Because . . . of course Felicity knew when Ollie was lying.  She always had, according to both of them.  And once she knew the circumstances, Thea knew Felicity well enough to believe she understood why Ollie had kept silent.  But it had to be galling, to have another example of Ollie making a decision and not including Felicity in it.  And when he kept doing it . . . 

“I just . . . we were a team.  She had my back and I had hers,” Ollie said softly.  “At least, I thought I did.  But I didn’t, did I?”  

“In so many ways, you did,” Thea said, reaching out and putting a hand on his arm.  “You did, Ollie.  She told me how happy you made her.  But . . . yeah, you kinda flunked this part of the teamwork test.”

He nodded, giving her a weak smile.  “Yeah.  So I’m trying to figure out how to tell her I want to try again.  Get a makeup test, so to speak.”  

Thea hoisted herself up onto the counter and sipped her cider, puzzling this over.  Ollie, sensing she needed a moment, went back to chopping up vegetables.  He dropped two chicken breasts into a skillet and began doing whatever he did to make delicious-tasting food.  

Wherever he had picked up these cooking skills, Thea couldn’t help but be impressed.  She smiled a little.  

“How have you made up after fights before?” Thea asked out of curiosity, and in case it would give her some insight into what advice to offer.

Ollie stilled.  “Um, well . . .”  

Her eyes narrowed.  “Are you telling me you guys have never had a fight before?”  

“We have!  But . . . they’ve been more spats.  Little things, like me leaving wet towels on her side of the bed and Felicity working with you guys while we were gone,” Ollie said.  “Other than when she was upset about Ray, that is.  And with that . . . I gave her some space, and then she came back to me when she was ready.”  

“But this time, she hasn’t come back.”  

Nodding, he rolled his head on his shoulders and went back to cooking, looking more tense than he had since he arrived.  “No.  She hasn’t.”  

God, her brother never caught a break.  Even though she was more-than-just-a-little pissed at him for what he had done, she couldn’t deny that nothing ever came easy for him.

“I think you just need to ask her if you can talk to her.  Tell her what you told me, about how you guys were a team and you messed up at being a teammate,” Thea finally said.  Because she just wasn’t sure how Felicity felt.  

Their coffee date earlier this week, after two weeks of general conversation in the lair, hadn’t done much to clue Thea in on Felicity’s state of mind.  For someone who babbled as much as Felicity did, she could do a really good clam impression.  

But Thea could see that Felicity was hurting.  It was there in the brittleness of her voice, in the forced smiles, in the too-tight grip she had on her coffee cup.  But slowly, over the course of the hour they had spent together, Felicity had gotten a flicker of her spirit back.  

She still wasn’t  _ Felicity  _ though.  And Thea didn’t know if she just needed more time to get over Ollie, or if Felicity didn’t want to get over Ollie but thought she should, or if she was just waiting for a sign from Ollie in order to forgive him and start talking.  

If Ollie tried, if he made the first move . . . Felicity would just have to talk to him.  She  _ had  _ to.  

Because Thea didn’t know what else they were going to do.

Ollie took a deep breath.  “Yeah, that’s . . . that’s a good way to start.”  He picked up his glass and drained it, looking nervous and shy in a way Thea had never seen before.  It was adorable.  

With a smile, Thea reached out and rubbed his shoulder.  “Give her a call tomorrow.  Not too early, of course.  Ask her out for coffee.  And when you’re there, tell her about wanting to be a better teammate.”  

“That’s if she agrees to get coffee with me,” Ollie replied, sounding doubtful.  

“She will,” Thea said, believing it.  

Because as much as Ollie loved Felicity, Felicity loved him back.  She might have tried to not think about that, after how Ollie had hurt her, but Thea knew that Felicity had to still love her brother.

It was hard work to love Oliver Queen, but Thea knew enough to know that Felicity Smoak never backed down from a challenge.

XXX

His palms were sweating.  There were butterflies in his stomach.  And he was pretty sure he was as red as a tomato.  

Asking Felicity out the first time had been less nerve-wracking than this.  

Perhaps it was because that time, he was talking to her face-to-face.  Maybe he should wait, talk to her at the Lair tomorrow--

No.  No, this had gone on for nearly three weeks.  He wasn’t going to wait any longer.  And . . . and he didn’t want to make things messier than they already were, by talking to her in the Lair.  Where it was too easy for them to be their roles in the bigger team, the muscle and the tech support.  

This was about Oliver and Felicity.  And whether they were still Oliver and Felicity.  Because if they weren’t . . . he might as well know now.  So he could find a way to start making some kind of life for himself.  

He picked up his phone and let his thumb hover over the contact for Felicity, but then he put the phone down and started pacing.  His footsteps echoed within the loft, highlighting just how empty the space was.  It had felt empty ever since Felicity had walked out.  

It was a miracle, really.  How the bio-implant that Curtis had created had restored her, let her walk again with her head up and her shoulders back.  The moment her foot had moved, even in the middle of his misery at her leaving, he had felt so happy for her.  So proud.  

And he was stalling.  

Oliver blew out a breath.  He knew this was what he needed to do.  John was right--he and Felicity needed to talk about this.  And Thea was right, too, that Oliver had let Felicity down.  

It wasn’t enough to try.  It was admirable, yes, but it wasn’t enough.  Felicity deserved more than him trying to be better.  She deserved him  _ becoming  _ better.  

It wouldn’t happen overnight.  He probably would never be as good a man as Felicity deserved.  But he’d be damned if he wouldn’t work to be that man.  And if Felicity believed him, if she thought he could work like that, then--then maybe . . . 

Maybe it wasn’t over.  

But he wouldn’t know until he picked up the phone and called her.  

Turning away from the windows, Oliver went back to his phone and picked it up.  Without letting himself even think about putting this off for even a second, he firmly pressed his thumb against Felicity’s contact and put the phone to his ear.  

As he listened to the buzzes of her ringing phone, Oliver hunched his shoulders slightly, looking down at the ground.  It rang six, then seven times.  He was bracing himself to get her voicemail when suddenly, he heard her voice.

“Hello?”  

“Felicity,” he said, his breath coming out in a rush.  Not realizing he had been holding his breath, out of anticipation and nervousness and fear.  And also hope.  

There was a pause, and then she said, “Oliver . . .”  

What did it mean, the way she had let his name trail off like that?  And was he just imagining it, but did he hear hope in her voice, too?  

Straightening up, Oliver looked around the empty, echoing loft.  The home that they had made together, the home that didn’t feel like a home without her in it.  And that made the words come easily to him.

“Felicity, could I take you out for some coffee?  I was hoping we could talk.”

End.


End file.
